A Useless and Terrible Death: The Michael Farmer Case, “Hidden Violence,” and New York City in the Fifties

In the summer of 1957, old conflicts among black, white, and Hispanic youths over access to a public pool in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan exploded in the murder of one white youth and the wounding of another. Despite a history of white gangs harassing young people of color on the way to municipal pools in New York, the possibility that racial and ethnic conflict had something to do with the killing was dismissed. In the courts, journalism and city government, the slaying was framed as an incident of juvenile delinquency. This ignored a long tradition of informal segregation at formally integrated public pools. It also overlooked growing tensions among white, black and Hispanic New Yorkers, and perpetuated the illusion that New York was a liberal city that would escape battles over integration.